Starting 24 February, customers can book a room in the Kirchberg or Belval cinema at a fee of €199 for groups of up to ten people. The price doesn’t change with the number of guests.

“We see this as a complementary offer,” said Christophe Eyssartier, manager at Kinepolis Luxembourg.

“We are confident of the possibility to watch a film in all safety in our theatres,” he said, adding that the group was targeting small groups of friends or families who would like to watch a movie together but cannot do so at home because of coronavirus restrictions.

Households can currently only welcome two guests who must live in the same home.

“We are evaluating interest; if the response is favourable, we could keep it beyond the crisis,” the manager said. In the first four hours of the offer going online, there was a first booking in Belval.

However, the rules during a private screening are the same as when watching a film during a regular session at the cinema: it is mandatory to wear masks throughout the screening, food and drink are banned, and people not from the same household must sit at least two metres apart.

Bookings can be made between three days and two weeks in advance although the cinema does not accept cancellations. Private screenings were previously only possible for companies and schools.

Since reopening in January, the group is seeing around a quarter of its normal audience come to its cinemas, Eyssartier said.

Kinepolis, however, isn’t the only cinema in Luxembourg offering private screenings. The Caramba cinema group, with venues in Rumelange and Mondorf-les-Bains, is offering bookings at €225 to €275, depending on the day, for groups of up to 15 people.

Here, too, coronavirus restrictions remain the same as during public screenings.

The CinéScala in Diekirch also offers private screenings although information on rates and availability is only available on demand.  

This story was first published in French on paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.